What is out here
Mudgeeraba still feels like a village. There is a main street with the usual shops and services, a showground, the Light Horse Museum, and Somerset College on its large campus. Reedy Creek is more residential, with a shopping strip, schools and acreage properties around the edges.
The businesses reflect that. Schools and colleges with substantial administration. Churches and community groups. Rural suppliers, horse and farm related firms, builders and tradies who work out of a home office, a few practices and agents. They are not high volume but they are loyal to their machines, and some of them have been working for ten years or more.
School and college offices
A large school is a business with hundreds of staff and families. Somerset College and the smaller schools nearby generate enrolment forms, reports, newsletters and excursion paperwork, and the office staff are often the ones who print for everyone. Their copiers are busier than their size suggests.
Peaks follow the school calendar. Term start, report week and end of year are when machines fail, because a long idle holiday leaves rollers dry and paper damp. A short check in the holidays, on the feeder and the paper path, prevents the Monday morning call.
Home based and shed based offices
Plenty of Mudgeeraba and Reedy Creek businesses are run from a spare room or a converted shed. We still service those machines, though our work is aimed at commercial offices.
Outbuildings bring their own conditions. A shed is hot in summer and cold in winter, and a copier in one sees big temperature swings. Condensation forms on glass and in the paper path when a cool machine meets warm, damp air in the morning. Let it settle before use. Insects get in. Ants and small spiders find the warmth inside a machine and some turn up in feeders and fusers, which is a stranger fault than it sounds.
Power, storms and long driveways
The hinterland edge gets weather. Storms bring surges and outages, and a printer that has been through one often behaves strangely afterward. If the power has gone off, switch the machine off at the wall for a minute before turning it on. If a message appears, write it down.
Some properties are down a long driveway or behind a gate. Tell us the address, the gate code if there is one and anything about the dogs. It saves a technician sitting at the front of the property wondering which turn to take.
Ink and toner, laser and inkjet
Rural and home offices often have an inkjet beside the laser. We focus on commercial laser machines and copiers, and we still look at an inkjet if someone rings. Our work is toner machines, fusers, drums and paper paths, and we say honestly if a faulty inkjet is better replaced.
Which brands
HP LaserJet and Brother lasers dominate the desks. Kyocera and Canon copiers and multifunctions sit in school offices and larger firms, Toshiba and Ricoh in some. We service all of those, and Fujifilm, Epson, Lexmark, Oki and others.
We repair for the offices and not for the makers, and we say so plainly. We pick the technician who knows your make best, and all of them are certified and experienced.
Paper, damp and the first sheet of the day
Mudgeeraba sits close to the hills and gets more rain and mist than the beachside suburbs. Paper stored in a shed or a cupboard soaks it up, and the first few sheets of the day curl as they pass the fuser. Swollen paper jams in the drawer and the duplexer, and a ream that has stood for a month in a damp room will cause more calls than a worn part.
The remedy is dull and effective. Keep paper in its wrapper until it is loaded, store the ream flat, and buy the amount you will use rather than a pallet. If a jam keeps happening on thick or glossy stock, check that the paper type is set on the panel.
Churches, clubs and community offices
Churches, sporting clubs, pony clubs and community groups use printers in bursts: weekly notices, rosters, fixtures, programmes. A machine that prints a few hundred sheets on a Thursday and nothing else all week is a candidate for dried out rollers and stale toner. A short service every year or two is cheaper than the Saturday fail.
These offices are often staffed by volunteers who do not want to learn the machine. We keep the call simple. Ring, tell us what is on the screen, and we say what we think it is.
Rural suppliers and small trade offices
Horse feed suppliers, nurseries, pool and garden firms, mechanics, builders and rural contractors keep a front office with a printer and a scanner. They print invoices, pick slips and job sheets, often on carbonless or duplicate paper. Carbonless sets are fussy. They need a paper path in good condition, because a crease or a slip ruins the copy beneath.
If a duplicate set smudges or the second copy is faint, tell us. It is usually a roller or a pressure setting, and we can see it quickly on site.
Getting the machine looked at properly
Some of our calls out this way are about a machine somebody else set up and nobody remembers how. A cable running to a router in another building, a driver installed in 2016, a scan address pointing at a computer that was replaced. We trace it, fix it and write down what we found.
The Saturday problem
A business that trades at the markets or on Saturdays often does its paperwork on Sunday night or Monday morning. If the printer fails then, the office has lost its best window. We cannot promise to be there on a Sunday night, but same day service is available on working days, and the call is logged if the lines are busy.
Moving house and moving the machine
A good number of home based businesses out here expand, move into a unit at Robina or Varsity Lakes, and take the printer with them. A copier that has been shaken in the back of a ute needs a look. Toner can spill, a drum can shift, and the first print after a move is rarely clean. Do not carry a copier tilted. If it has been moved, let it sit upright for a few hours before switching on, and print a test page before the first real job.
If you want us to look at it after the move, say it was moved. It changes what we check first.
A fair question about cost
People out here are careful with money, and fair enough. We do not give prices on this page. We agree the price on the phone, before anyone is booked, and nothing is locked in by calling us. If the repair is not worth doing, we say so, even when it means no job for us.
Farm gates, pony clubs and the Springbrook turn off
Out toward the foot of Springbrook Road the properties get bigger and the offices smaller. A stud, a riding school or a landscaping yard may run one printer in a lean to beside the machinery shed. The same advice applies as anywhere: paper sealed, the machine off the floor, surge protection on the power, and a note of the model before you ring.
What a repair looks like
The technician arrives, checks the machine, tells you what is wrong and what the part is, and fixes it where it stands. 98% of repairs are fixed on the first visit, and common spare parts are carried in the van. Our work is warranted, so a repeat of the same fault is fixed again free.
Heat inside the box
A fuser punishes a rushed hand
The fuser runs hot enough to scorch a sleeve and it stays hot long after the machine goes quiet. A tech who does not wait, or who skips the cool down, burns a thumb and sometimes cracks a roller.
We test before we replace, and we tell you what we found. Fusers are not cheap and we would rather not fit one you did not need.
- Cool before touched. We wait, because the fuser does not hurry.
- Stock checked first. Damp paper from a humid week is ruled in or out early.
- Parts earn their place. A new part goes in once the old one is proven faulty.
Keep reading
Photocopier repairsAny make of office copier, repaired where it stands.
Commercial printer repairsWorkgroup lasers and fleets, repaired where they sit.
HP printer repairsLaserJet codes read like a sentence. We read them aloud.
Kyocera repairsTASKalfa copiers and ECOSYS printers, serviced on site.
RobinaProfessional and medical offices around Robina Town Centre and Bond University
Varsity LakesGrowing professional and service offices at the southern end of the rail lineBuy, sell and lease
Buy, sell and lease commercial copiers on the Gold Coast
We also sell new and refurbished commercial copiers and buy used ones. Same team, same technicians.
Pictures from the job
Common questions from Gold Coast offices
Do you service Mudgeeraba and Reedy Creek school offices?
Yes. We suggest a check in the holidays so the machine is sound for term.
Can you visit a business run from a shed?
Yes. Tell us the address and the access, and about temperature or dust in the shed.
Ants have got into the copier. Is that a real problem?
It can be. Insects get into feeders and fusers and cause jams or smells. Switch it off and ring.
The printer will not start after a storm. What do we do?
Switch it off at the wall for a minute, then try again. If it shows a message, write it down and ring.
Do you repair inkjet printers?
Our work is laser machines and copiers, and we tell you honestly if an inkjet is not worth repairing.
Do you come out to Mudgeeraba on the day?
Same day service is available on working days. Ring early with the address and the message on the screen.
Do you cover properties down a long driveway?
Yes. Tell us the gate code and anything else the technician needs.
Do you cover the hills end of the suburb?
Yes. HP, Brother, Kyocera, Canon, Toshiba, Ricoh, Fujifilm, Epson and others, at your address.
